Thoracic crop formation is spatiotemporally coordinated with flight muscle histolysis during claustral colony foundation in Lasius japonicus queens.

In a majority of ants, a newly mated queen independently founds a colony and claustrally raises her first brood without foraging outside the nest. During claustral independent colony foundation (ICF) in several ants, the esophagus of the founding queen expands and develops into a "thoracic crop," which is then filled with a liquid substrate for larval feeding. It has been suggested that these substrates are converted from the founding queen's body reserves (e.